SOPA and PIPA and censors, oh my!

In the first battle of World War Web, We the People won a decisive victory last week in the defeat of two acts that could have drastically altered the Internet as we know it. Through the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), media moguls and Hollywood execs sought to diminish the free and open Internet in their quest to eliminate online piracy.

But when the story caught fire across social media, many of us weren't quite fond of the idea that we could spend up to five years in prison for uploading a Michael Jackson song — a year longer than the doctor who killed him.

Nor were we fond of the idea that the federal government could effectively shut YouTube down completely if a single copyrighted work slipped through the cracks (as they do daily).

So we rebelled on Facebook, Twitter and blogs. We flooded Congress's email boxes. A bill that was hurtling towards quick and easy passage came to a halt.

Soon, President Obama signaled his opposition to the bills. Whitehouse.gov released a statement that it would "not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet." Even sponsors of the bill began to withdraw support.

Rupert Murdoch, CEO of the world's second largest media conglomerate, News Corp., was none too happy: "Seems blogosphere has succeeded in terrorizing many senators and congressmen who previously committed," he fumed in a tweet. "Politicians all the same."

He had reason to be angry.

According to Maplight.org, SOPA supporters contributed to representatives in Congress more than six times the amount of money opponents did. In total, Hollywood spent $103.9 million in a bid to buy votes. That included $120,000 to Mississippi Rep. Steven Palazzo and $772,000 to Mississippi representatives altogether.

Proponents of a free and open Internet could only muster $16.5 million.

Hollywood should've won handily. SOPA was such a done deal that many in Congress didn't see the need need to debate it. Irony-deaf Iowa Rep. Steve King tweeted, "We are debating the Stop Online Piracy Act and [Rep.] Sheila Jackson has so bored me that I'm killing time by surfing the Internet."

If our representatives wouldn't pay attention, we decided we would.

This time, our tweets, statuses, shares and blogs spoke louder than the corporate coffers. Where we couldn't raise money, we did raise hell.

The bruised gods of media empire felt scandalized. It was as if gravity had stopped working and proved Sir Issac Newton a liar.

But without a Newton to blame for the sudden failure of crony theory, certain of these moguls turned their anger on President Obama. How dare he respond to the will of the commoners when they, the media titans, had spent so much money courting him!

"Don't expect Hollywood to show up and say, ‘Who do I write the check to' anymore," Nikki Finke of deadline.com reported one such mogul as saying.

"I'm personally not going to support [Obama] anymore and not give a dime anymore," another said.

They're dismayed, not just because we stopped SOPA, but because we discovered something they'd hoped we'd never find out: That We the People, by the power of the very tools some sought to take from us, could send an unmistakable rebuke to the system by which their greed thrives.

Not only can we win World War Web, but we can win the war against that system which says big money is more important than big ideas.